Last one out, lights on

I’m not going to lie. Photographing family, friends and public events at nighttime is tricky.

You might remember we previously ran the creative Light Painting project – you know, the project where you got to wave your glowsticks around and make pretty, abstract shapes using long exposures?

Well now we’d love to see some nighttime documentary photographs – images that instead show the various lifestyles and activities of people and creatures in your community. It's all for the Snapped: After Dark project.

“But after sunset there’s not enough light to make good photographs," said every photographer before the advent of high ISO digital cameras.

Do you notice how good modern cameras are at capturing amazing images in low light? Get ready to pump up that ISO setting and sacrifice having a little image noise for that killer shot.

Or if possible, introduce more light into the scene. Use a tripod. The challenge is to make the great image despite all these limitations.

“There’s nothing to photograph at night,” I mistakenly said many years ago.

A few years back I challenged myself to photograph at night when I found I just couldn’t walk out of work in time to see any sunlight - that’s a pretty big thing when my favourite hobby is photography.

So after I clocked off I wandered the streets with my camera. I was attracted to the places where there was abundant artificial light: sports grounds; dance halls; down the main street. You get the idea.

It was great discovering the nocturnal lifestyles of people. I found ways to make the motion blur and low lighting work for me. It opened up a different way of seeing and photographing things that normally appear mundane and flat in bright daylight.

You can photograph your family and friends for this project, in fact, I
highly recommend it. For example, you could photograph your mates
at an evening bonfire celebration or tag along to see some evening sports training.

If you do decide to try some night street photography then you’re up for an extra challenge, especially in country towns where things go quiet and there aren’t the bright lights of shop fronts and neon signs like in the city.

When people prominently feature in your images it’s often polite to ask if it’s okay to photograph them. Don’t feel bad if your request is rejected - I mean really, how often do you encounter people wandering around at night with a camera? It's a numbers game. I find you win some, you lose some.

If I knew a surefire way to not creep out potential subjects then I’d publish a book about it. Every situation is different and I find it’s all a matter of having a polite approach, being transparent about what you’re doing and showing that you’re not a threat. Kind of like every other social situation in life.